


it's good to warm my bones by the fire

by goodmanperfectsoldier



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, First Kiss, Fluff, Hot Chocolate, M/M, Mistletoe, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stucky Secret Santa 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:50:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5540708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmanperfectsoldier/pseuds/goodmanperfectsoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve makes hot chocolate. Bucky carries out a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's good to warm my bones by the fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starmaki (themirrordarkly)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themirrordarkly/gifts).



> Written for [starmaki](starmaki.tumblr.com) for the 2015 [Stucky Secret Santa](http://stuckysecretsanta.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. The prompt involved hot cocoa, mistletoe, and post-CATWS recovering Bucky. Hopefully I've done well! 
> 
> Title from the Pink Floyd song "Time".

"It'll just be another minute, Buck," Steve said, dropping the last couple of pieces of chocolate into the pot and stirring as they dissolved. Bucky appeared in the entryway to the kitchen and leaned against the empty doorframe. 

"Take your time, pal, I know you're particular about it," he said with a smile. Steve had spent a long time perfecting his stovetop hot chocolate method. He'd had to adjust it a little when he got to the 21st century to compensate for the electric stovetops and the differences in chocolate, but he'd finally figured it out again in the last couple of weeks. Bucky had tasted a lot of hot chocolate in the past month or so, but he wasn’t complaining. It was actually a blessing as the dead of winter came upon them, and Bucky found it harder and harder to thaw himself out. There’d been a time, all too recently, when Bucky had wondered if he’d ever really be able to shake off the last of the cold that Hydra had injected into his veins. Hot chocolate—Steve's hot chocolate, in the Captain America mug that Bucky found buried in one of Steve's cabinets and insisted on using, exclusively—was one of the things that warmed Bucky up the most these days.

Bucky scanned the room while he waited on Steve. It was a habit he thought he might never get rid of, but here, he didn’t mind putting it to use. The kitchen in their shared apartment was small but clean, filled with a mixture of familiar items—the battered kettle on the back burner of the stove, a giant soup pot just like the one Steve’s mother had used sitting in the sink—and high tech appliances, like the shiny, chrome-covered coffee machine, which made a great cup but looked like something out of one of Bucky’s old sci-fi novels. There was a little window over the sink; the curtains were open, letting the morning sunlight warm Bucky's collection of herbs in their little pots and spill across the room to backlight Steve's profile. 

The scan stopped when Bucky's eyes caught on Steve. The sunlight glinted against Steve's blonde hair in a way that illuminated all the little flyaway strands he always had in the mornings and created a golden halo around his head. It looked soft and fluffy, and Bucky wanted to run his fingers through it. Steve blinked and Bucky moved his gaze down to Steve's eyelashes, gold as the rest of his hair, and long enough to catch the light. Anyone would be jealous of those eyelashes, and those cheekbones, but looking at them just made Bucky want to stretch out his hand and brush his fingertips against Steve’s cheek. Since he couldn’t do that, not yet, he just let his eyes follow the aquiline curve of Steve's nose to his perfect, pink lips. 

Steve was humming while he worked, and as per usual, he was hopelessly off key. The guy could carry just about anything, including Bucky himself, but he had never been able to carry a tune. But the really good thing about Steve's humming was the way it made Steve purse his lips, just slightly, just enough to fuel Bucky's many, many fantasies of kissing his best friend. Fantasies that would, if Bucky played the next couple of minutes right, start coming true after over a quarter of a century—or three, depending on how you looked at it—of waiting. 

Bucky ran his flesh hand through his hair—freshly cut, but still long enough to tie back into the bun he’d found he preferred—and stole a glance directly above himself, where earlier that day, he had discreetly pinned a little sprig of mistletoe. Now all he had to do was get Steve under it. 

"Alright, 's done," Steve said right then, and Bucky's eyes snapped back down to meet Steve’s. "Picked your mug?" Bucky nodded and pointed to where his usual mug, the blue one with the little cartoon of Steve's shield on the front, sat innocently on the counter. Steve picked it up and rolled his eyes. 

"Should never have let Tony give me this," he said, but he was smiling. 

"And deny me my one daily pleasure?" Bucky asked, smirking, and Steve laughed as he spooned hot chocolate into Bucky's mug and then his own. 

"Wouldn't wanna deny you any pleasure, Buck," Steve said, turning to face Bucky with a sly look on his face. He was poking fun, but there was a lot of truth behind the joke, Bucky could tell. 

"That so, huh?" Bucky asked, and he let his smirk turn into a lopsided smile. This looked like it was working out better than he'd planned. 

"Yeah, Bucky," Steve said simply, stepping closer and holding out the mug. Bucky reached out for it, but grabbed Steve's wrist, gently, instead. Steve's eyes opened a little wider, and wider still when Bucky carefully tugged Steve closer. When Steve was standing in the doorway, slipper-clad feet bracketed by Bucky's, Bucky wrapped his left arm around Steve's waist. This time he didn't pull or push, but Steve moved closer anyway, until there was no space between them except for the two mugs of hot chocolate. 

"How about this one?" Bucky asked, pointing with his free hand to the spot above their heads where the mistletoe was hanging. Steve looked up and Bucky watched with glee as the tips of his ears went pink. Bucky had a lot of favorite things about Steve, many of which he would willingly tell anyone within earshot, but this was one he liked to keep to himself. Before the blush could spread to his cheeks, Steve looked back down at Bucky with a soft smile. He reached out to set both mugs on the nearest counter and then wrapped his arms around Bucky and closed the last inches between them. 

"Anything, Buck," Steve said. He was close enough that Bucky felt the words more than heard them. And a second later, Steve's lips were on his.

Their kiss was soft and careful, and Steve must have been sampling the chocolate as he mixed it in, because Bucky could taste it on him. It was everything Bucky had been imagining since that first time, decades ago, when he'd looked at Steve's face—really looked—and wondered what it might be like to press his lips to his. It was everything and it was more, it was better; it was wonderful. Steve's body was warm against Bucky's, and Bucky could feel the ice that was still caked and crackling around his bones start to melt, if only just a little bit more. 

—

They didn't remember the hot chocolate until a couple hours later. Steve said he'd make some more if Bucky ever let him out of bed. 

Bucky didn't intend to.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is, my first actually-finished-and-posted fic in this fandom. Thank you to [softpunkbucky](http://softpunkbucky.tumblr.com/) for the beta. I am also on Tumblr: [softbrobucky](http://softbrobucky.tumblr.com/).


End file.
